HISTORY OF THE COFFEE-TREE. 3J.7 



of being opaque, and ]ia\dng, as when we usually see 

 them, a tinge of bronze, were translucent, and of a 

 greenish-blue color. The best are those which have 

 these characters, and at the same time are very hard. 

 This coffee commands a much higher price than that 

 of Java, and is superior to any raised in the archi- 

 pelago, unless it may be some that comes from the 

 highlands in the interior of Sumatra. 



The coffee crop is subject to some variation, but 

 the Resident informs me that the average yield of the 

 government gardens during the last few years has 

 been no less than 37,000 piculs (5,000,000 pounds). 

 The whole number of trees belonging to the govern- 

 ment is 5,949,616, but a large proportion of these are 

 young, and therefore bear little or no fruit. Several 

 private indi\'iduals also own large plantations, that 

 yield as well in proportion to the number of trees 

 they contain. The trees are found to thrive best 

 above an elevation of one thousand feet. 



The native name of this plant and its fruit is Tcopi^ 

 a corniption of the name in Dutch, the people who 

 introduced it into this archipelago. The tree, Coffea 

 Arahica^ is a native of Africa, between the tenth and 

 fifteenth degrees of north latitude,* but it thrives 

 anywhere -svithin the tropics on the hundi-eds of high 

 islands in the archipelago, as well as in the dry lands 

 ^vhere it is indigenous. It was as late as 1450, about 

 half a century before the discovery of om' continent, 

 that it was brought over from Abyssinia to the moun- 

 tainous parts of Arabia. In this way it happened 

 tliat tlie Arabians were the people who introduced it 



* Crawfiird's " Dictionary of the India Islands." 



